Proceedings of the 13th Meeting of
The COMCEC Trade Working Group
3
2. The COMCEC Trade Outlook
Ms. Vildan BARAN, Senior Expert from the COMCEC Coordination Office, has presented some of
the key findings of the COMCEC Trade Outlook 2018.
In her presentation, Ms. BARAN focused on the recent trends and main characteristics of the
trade between the OIC Member States and the world, recent trends in intra-OIC trade and
trade facilitation in the OIC Member States.
Concerning the trade between OIC Member states and the world, Ms. BARAN stated that total
OIC exports increased by 17.1 percent to 1.7 trillion $ in 2017. She mentioned that total OIC
imports increased by 7.3 per cent and amounted to 1.7 trillion $. Thus, she stated, the total OIC
trade increased from 3.0 trillion $ in 2016 to 3.4 trillion $ in 2017..
Ms. BARAN pointed out that several factors accounted for the performance in total OIC exports
in 2017 including the revival of global economic activity and rising commodity prices. Ms.
BARAN also shared figures about total OIC trade, share of OIC trade in global trade and the
breakdown of total OIC exports and imports by countries and sectors.
She stated that top performers in total OIC exports were Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, United Arab
Emirates, Indonesia and Turkey with 60 percent of total OIC exports in 2017. Mineral fuels,
oils, electrical machinery and equipment, pearls, precious stones, mechanical appliance and
plastics represented 45 percent of the total OIC exports.
Ms. BARAN also stated that total OIC exports are highly concentrated. Accordingly, the share
of mineral fuels, oils and distillation products in total OIC exports was 42 percent in 2017. This
sector was followed by electrical machinery and equipment, pearls, precious stones, ores, slag
and ash and machinery, mechanical appliances. These five sectors as a whole accounted for 61
per cent of total OIC exports in 2017.
She also elaborated on the intra-OIC trade. She shared the figures about intra-OIC trade and
commodity composition of intra-OIC exports. She emphasized that although the intra-OIC
trade remained weak in the last two years, it rebounded strongly in 2017. Intra-OIC trade
increased by 19.0 per cent to 323 billion dollars in 2017
Ms. BARAN concluded his presentation by sharing figures on border compliance costs and
times for exports in the OIC Member States. She stated that border compliance costs and times
vary immensely across the member countries and reducing trade costs in the OIC member
states is important to be more competitive in international markets.